Abstract
For Christians, the fundamental question on war is: what is the will of God? And many believe the answer must be unambiguous: love, yet not the love that kills without mercy but cruciform love. In his book, Warlike Christians in an Age of Violence, Nick Megoran, a political geographer at Newcastle University in the UK, raises an important question: is it possible to go to war out of love for the people who are being devastated by enemies? Some Christians are inclined to say yes (i.e., just war), but others disagree since Jesus did not follow this path; he died for his enemies (i.e., gospel peace). Megoran’s project contends for the latter, yet thanks not least to his expertise in political geography it refines the aforementioned questions using vivid case studies, biblical exegeses, and ethnographic experience of mission fields where violence is an everyday reality. Hence, Megoran solidifies the concept of gospel peacemaking while challenging the reader to question his or her perspective on concepts such as war, peace, and just war theory.
Through the lens of the gospel, Megoran establishes an opposition to just war theory, and proposes a new kind of pacifism that is rooted in evangelization. With these objectives in mind, he explains how Christians should react to war and violence not just during times of extreme turmoil but in everyday life. This refined theological and moral vision is developed in the first three chapters which ask: is war permitted by the Bible?
Megoran explores how the Old Testament is used to permit war. He references Clifford Longley who coined the term ‘chosen people syndrome’ (p. 26) for when a nation believes that it has the right to pursue war, that God has flooded it with graces as the ‘New Israel’, and that God is on its side fighting against the enemy (pp. 29–33). Megoran distills this term into the three rules of warfare given to the Israelites by God. The first rule is ‘Vanquished Foes’, meaning that any pagan city found within the promised land was to be destroyed. The second is ‘Military Weakness’, which essentially consists of giving God all of the power and glory, thereby fighting for holiness, not for land or political power. The final rule is ‘No Alliance’, meaning God’s chosen people may not ally with other peoples (pp. 33–38). However, Megoran argues that these rules are outdated after Pentecost since the New Testament shows a different understanding of holiness and justice. He explains, through modern day examples, that individuals should put their trust in God and withdraw from violence with their neighbors. He claims that Christians are distinguished from Hebrews in ancient society since they are empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead holy lives and not to destroy those around them but bring them closer to God. This is the way the New Testament differs from the Old. Christians are not to destroy those who are sinful but through their actions to invite them into holiness. This evangelization, or the proclamation ‘of the gospel of peace’ (p. 47), is how Christians can cleanse the world of sin.
Further, Megoran explores the arguments people have made regarding the Bible supporting warfare and demonstrates by using textual analysis how these arguments are weak. For example, Megoran criticizes Reinhold Niebuhr’s exegesis of Luke 21’s text that Jesus is not coming to make peace on earth but rather to bring division. Some just war proponents like Niebuhr use this passage to support the idea that the Bible permits war. Megoran argues, however, that ‘[t]hese things will happen because of sin, but by no stretch of the imagination are Christians, therefore, mandated to welcome their appearance or to participate in them’ (p. 51). Megoran emphasizes that Jesus was simply attempting to show that war is lacking in doing good for other human beings, namely love. There would be no war if there was no evil in the world. Megoran pushes further to say that not only was Jesus demonstrating that war is a result of the fall of Adam and Eve, but also that Jesus was not attempting to justify engaging in war.
This argument is developed through chapter 4 on the early church. Jesus’ mission was to spread the love of God by teaching others to love their enemies, even when this was challenging. Megoran repeatedly uses Jesus’ title Prince of Peace, establishing Him as a figure of non-violence whom Christians should emulate. Additionally, he uses the nature of war to establish why participating in it is unchristian: war being a sinful response to sin, acting in or supporting wars would go against God’s will. This leaves the reader with the question: if we cannot actively fight for people who are suffering, what can we do to help them?
For the rest of the book, Megoran answers this question as he continues to discuss just war theory and engage in a biblical, pacifistic critique of it. Chapter 5 focuses on the medieval and modern church’s development of just war theory, on both the secular and religious problems that accompany it, and on how the Protestant Reformation began to correct these violent errors. From a secular perspective, criticisms can be made of just war theory, particularly that the two principles of discrimination and proportionality do not work for the nature of modern warfare. Beyond secular cracks in just war theory, Megoran attends to the medieval conception of holiness as found away from violence. Hence, priests were not free to join the military and those in the military abstained from conflict on certain feast days in the Church. He sees this as the Church intuitively knowing that violence is not what Christ wanted for his people and that any sanctioned use of it should be reinterpreted. He claims the Church has endorsed justified violence to gain class, privilege, or relevance in the world or naïvely to rise in a dramatic way to fight injustice. It is at this point that Megoran claims the Protestant Reformation is the catalyst for returning to the right track of what Jesus wanted regarding peace in the world. It signified a turn back to Scripture and away from tradition that had added interpretations in favor of violence to the text.
In chapters 6 and 7, he scrutinizes the Second World War and Adolf Hitler’s role in it. Chapter 6 is mainly a review of what led to World War II and what this war entailed. This chapter sets the stage for chapter 7, which explores how just war theory created an environment for ‘Hitlerism to emerge’ (p. 167), and Christian responses to the war. While Hitler was a Catholic and presented himself using Christian terms and stating that Christianity is the unshakable foundation for morality and national life, in Megoran’s estimation the churches of the Allies abandoned the gospel and supported nationalism, thus cultivating hate of neighbor. This led the Allies to forget that ‘everyone is made in the image of God and thus worthy of equal respect, regardless of nation’ (p. 246). When sight of this is lost, it can drive fellow Christians apart. Megoran believes that if more people had protested the war, Hitler would have fallen. Likewise, the churches could have organized a resistance to Nazism and promoted a culture of gospel peace.
In the concluding two chapters, Megoran suggests that the right reaction to war is what Christians should be doing every day: spreading the good news of God. He does not believe that peace will come from inaction that allows injustice to occur. The Christian response to war should be an active one where they spread the hope of Jesus to others who are suffering. Through evangelization, they bring souls to God and hopefully start to shift the mentality of a community. This cannot be done by Christians individually but it takes a community through prayer, worship, and discipline to cultivate their abilities as peacekeepers. Hence, Megoran argues that Christians should ensure that they keep their faith at the center of life and ‘“be the first to show the spirit of Christ” by seeking forgiveness and reconciliation’, and not get swept up by the enticements of nationalism (p. 246, quoting the evangelist Gipsy Smith on his efforts to bring Christians in South Africa together).
Megoran’s pacifist perspective can help invigorate Christians to strengthen not just their faith during war time but their faith overall. If they can examine their response to violence in light of the gospel, they can build more genuine and faithful connections with Christians and non-Christians alike. Through these connections they can make a more peaceful world and engender forgiveness and cooperation. Megoran’s work is salient and timely as he presents a thorough account of why Christians should reject just war theory other than by simply commenting on the sinfulness of violence. This contribution is possible, and even effective, due to his studies of political geography dealing with conflicts on the ground, but also due to his deep sense of responsibility towards people who have suffered violence in war zones or because of the political complexities of conflicts.
Yet Megoran’s arguments against just war theory do raise some significant concerns. I do not think the entire depth of just war theory, especially in the Catholic tradition, is appropriately explored in his work. First, Catholics understand that Catholic tradition ‘adds’ nothing to Scripture, but simply interprets it as all Protestant churches do. Secondly, most contemporary Catholic just war proponents do not justify killing in terms of love, in contrast to some Protestant counterparts such as Nigel Biggar. Lisa Sowle Cahill criticizes Biggar’s approach as not founded in Christian tradition. She presents three points: (1) killing cannot be love properly speaking; (2) ‘Christians should not characterize war as loving punishment, but as just defense of the common good’; and (3) ‘a Christian evaluation of war should always pay attention to the priority of peace and peacebuilding, for both theological and practical reasons’ (Lisa Sowle Cahill, ‘How Should War Be Related to Christian Love?’ Soundings 97.2 [2014], p. 187). The present-day Catholic Church seeks peace before it resorts to violence. Megoran characterizes the Church as an institution that cannot wait to sink its teeth into anyone who does not agree with its doctrine. Of course, one can see where such a picture comes from as the Church has gone through ugly periods of burning heretics. Regardless, today the Church seeks peace before resorting to violence.
Another problem is Megoran not allowing that human reason gives a way of knowing: ‘[n]either should [a Christian response to war] be based upon sets of theories derived from merely human wisdom at different times’ (p. 200). But something similar can also be said about Scripture: its interpretation has changed enormously through the ages. Moreover, recognizing that the Bible is an authoritative source of truth does not negate the fact that God can reveal truth to humans in other ways. Just war tradition is not arbitrary, as though made up out of nowhere, but is a reasoned discourse that has been around for thousands of years. It has been supported by theologians including St Augustine who lived in a society where violence was an everyday reality.
Although the critique above is brief, it is enough to raise some questions regarding Megoran’s assessment of just war theory. In his book he lays out criticisms of it from both secular and religious standpoints by engaging with key biblical texts and salient historical examples, and also by using interviews and case studies. However, the question remains of whether Megoran really does justice to present-day (Catholic) just war theory.